Leak the CIA Report: It's the Only Way to Know the Whole Truth About Torture

In a seemingly rare win for transparency, headlinesblared on Thursday that the Senate Intelligence Committee had voted to declassify key findings of its massive report on CIA torture. Unfortunately, most news articles waited until the final two paragraphs to mention the real news: the public won't see any of the document for months at minimum, and more than 90% of the investigation – characterized as "the Pentagon Papers of the CIA torture program" – will remain secret indefinitely.

In reality, only the executive summary and its conclusions – 480 out of some 6,300 pages – were even included in the vote, and they're nowhere close to being published: it now heads to the White House for "declassification review", an arduous process that will involve multiple government agencies taking a black marker to the documents, including the CIA, the same agency accused in the report of systematically torturing prisoners and lying about it for years. The spy report's subjects and suspects will now become its censors.

It's possible the only way the public will ever get to see the entire landmark report is the same way we've learned everything we know about it: if someone leaks it.

Trevor Timm is a co-founder and the executive director of the Freedom of the Press Foundation. He is a writer, activist, and legal analyst who specializes in free speech and government transparency issues. He writes a weekly column for The Guardian and has also contributed to The Atlantic, Al Jazeera, Foreign Policy, Harvard Law and Policy Review, PBS MediaShift, and Politico. Follow him on Twitter: @TrevorTimm

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